Is 10.3 i386 jinxed ?

[Polytropon]

On Sat, 30 Apr 2016 23:43:47 +0530, Manish Jain wrote:
> I reinstalled the whole system using xfce as the desktop. While things 
> have improved, the system is still not workable.
> 
> 1) The installer 'forgot' to place the boot code on the MBR. I had to 
> use live CD + boot0cfg to fix that.

Use MBR only if needed. Today's preference is to use GPT for
partitioning. Compare:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html

Use MBR only if you have a valid reason as it probably has
reached the state of "not supported anymore".



> 2) The first time X started, xfce4-panel crashed
> 3) The second time, xfce-terminal crashed
> 4) The third time, trying to launch firefox rebooted the system.

This (and especially the last problem) leads to the impression
that there is a _massive_ problem, it's probably not related to
the FreeBSD OS, and surely not to installed applications. Are
you sure there isn't a hardware problem lurking in the background?
Like... starting a web browser reboots the system... this simply
sounds totally wrong.



> Overall, 10.3 i386 seems to have gremlins in the belly. What do I do ? 

I have a 10.2 installation on an older Dell laptop, running Gnome 2,
no problems so far (but I haven't tried updating it yet, as I'm a
big fan of "never touch a running system", a symptom of lazyness
and "fat fingers"). :-)



> Try some linux distro ? This is exactly what I have been trying to avoid.

Check out PC-BSD or try the Lxde desktop. Maybe you can also
settle for a less convoluted desktop, i.e. a window manager
that you like.



> BTW, does anyone have any idea where can I get Windows XP drivers for 
> the NE56R laptop ?

>From the manufacturer of course. :-)



> If nothing else works, XP remains my fall-back option.

For offline use that's probably more or less okay. :-)


-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...